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Did you write? January 31,2011 . Wow, Another month has passed. I am doing horrible on keeping my New Year's resolution of not bragging about not keeping my New Year's resolution. I mean it is the toughest one I have ever made... Oops, I just broke it again.....
This note is a prompt to get people to write regularly. Many of us don't need it, but some have to have an excuse to face the blank screen and fill it with words. Knowing this note is coming and that you really should report SOMETHING, you decide it is best to report that you wrote so you open some work and wiggle your fingers over the keyboard.
How much you write is unimportant. One word or a couple thousand is equal. It is the habit of facing a project each week that is important. A little each week adds up to a lot of writing over the year. Also, your project might be to edit to less words so your word count might go backwards. You don't even have to work on just one project. Multiple pieces is as good as one.
What is writing is also not important. Each week I list possible selections as what can be writing. I could count a lot more than I personally do, but I have my own personal rules as to what is writing. You may choose a different set of rules. It is strictly up to you. Any new writing is of course, writing. Editing, is also writing, even if your word count goes backwards. editing someone else's work also is writing. Critiquing, poetry, article writing, blogging, writing assignments, technical writing, world and character creation, are all writing. Even E-mails can be writing if they are wordy and pertain to story or writing. If you have to ask as to what is writing, the answer is yes.
As for me, I have attacked my story in progress, trying to cut it down to size. At one point, I removed nearly 800 words from it by eliminating a scene, placing the meeting later. I then realized that I left out a key piece of information, so I added two hundred words back in to handle it. I nibbled at other scenes, clipping and correcting as I went. In all, I removed 667 words. The problem is that I need to remove nearly 7 thousand words to get where I need to be. This shrinking editing was supposed to be done back in November!!! I am giving some thought on the third story in the series and it is not going to be as easy as I hoped. These three stories set up the universe the rest of my hundreds of short stories will happen in.
On the story idea front, I really shrunk the size of the story presentations. they are within synopsis range for the most part. I got a little carried away. since they were small, I was able to belt them out a whole lot faster. I ended up posting 33 story ideas this month, with 37 pages of text, and 22,027 words of pure drivel. It is fun to write. What is more, I start out the year two ideas ahead!! that is always good. It allow for a little wiggle room for a really bad month. I have not had any where I never caught up, but one never knows.
On the woodworking front, not a lot happened. I was given a bunch of tools and spent much of the weekend sorting through them. I got a good start on my toy cannon I am making. I have to locate the book and see how it was built. It would be better than building it by guess and by golly.
As to the question of the week, I can honestly say,
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If you're talking about new words, I didn't accomplish much actual writing, but I've plotted two new stories for my YA series, and two of my SF short stories are that much closer to submission ready.
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Yes. I did a lot of world- and character-building for a new story, outlined the plot, and wrote about 2,000 words.
Posts: 968 | Registered: Sep 2008
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Yep. A lot of editing, well re-editing. I went back to an earlier version on several chapters. I had felt I had edited the voice out of them. It was amazing the difference between revisions.
Posts: 1168 | Registered: Mar 2008
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Still plugging along. Maybe slightly less than 9,000 words in the last week though, as yesterday was horrible. Write 200 words of garbage, but at least it was something, I guess. Will make up for it this coming weekend. Hitting that first-third psychological hurdle (wow that was a lot of work, and I have twice as much to go!)
Posts: 921 | Registered: Nov 2008
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Not much...I printed out and mailed off that thing I've been working on...then, Monday, I had a developing cold, and was so out of it on Tuesday that all I could do was sleep on the couch.
As for mailing the thing in...Monday it came back---postage due. I'd've gone down and ripped them a new one, but I've been too ill...
I added a scene, 2000 words, to my WotF WIP, and finished revising it. I also worked on some of the redrafting of Sandfishing. And an old set of characters popped up and told me how I should start their story, that is temporarily back-burnered, so I wrote about 600 words of that so they would let go of my brain.
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